Cash strapped cities dis-incorporating... Will this expand LOC in California?

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Cash strapped cities dis-incorporating... Will this expand LOC in California?

City officials in Half Moon Bay say the municipal budget is such a mess that it may make sense to disincorporate and turn the place over to San Mateo County.

I'm not sure if disincorporation is right for Half Moon Bay. But it may be the answer for many California cities struggling with too many spending commitments and not enough money. Digging out of budget holes may be harder than simply shutting things down.

Consider Los Angeles County which has 88 cities, many of which it clearly does not need. Several of the smaller cities seem to exist as personal playgrounds for families or particular businesses. Those municipalities -- the now famous Bell just one of them -- have extensive histories of municipal corruption. If such cities were to go away, would they be missed?

A side note: unions have revived legislation in Sacramento that seeks to prevent cash-strapped cities from declaring bankruptcy (Municipalities would have to get permission from a labor-dominated commission first). The consequence of that legislation, were it to pass, might well be to promote more disincorporations -- that is, the shutting down of cities -- since bankruptcy would be all but off the table.

12031 makes it illegal to carry a loaded weapon in incorporated city limits and prohibited areas in unincorporated territory. The advent of communties dis-incorporating their cities opens the door for loaded open carry. With no police departments of their own, communities would need to rely on an armed populous to maintain order. Agree or disagree?

The great thing about being in an unincorporated territory where the county has not banned shooting is that the police have no statutory authority to detain anyone to inspect load conditions; carrying unloaded in such areas hedges the accidental straying into an area where the county has banned shooting.

At this time, we do not know if federal no-shooting areas create Cal load ban areas - Cal. courts and the 1968 AG opinion have said cal state law shooting bans, e.g., on and over roads, do NOT create a load ban zone; further, Schwartzenegger's veto of the 2008 load ban bill categorized the load ban thing as a "local option."

I think that if a court was pressed to decide whether a federal law shooting ban created a load ban under 12031 that the court would **probably** side on the side of it NOT creating a load ban since the county has that perogative and could have done so if it wanted, and moreover, the federal policy of assimilating local criminal code onto federal lands lends itself to narrowly interpretting the reach of a federal shooting ban to not create a load ban.

12031 makes it illegal to carry a loaded weapon in incorporated city limits and prohibited areas in unincorporated territory. The advent of communties dis-incorporating their cities opens the door for loaded open carry. With no police departments of their own, communities would need to rely on an armed populous to maintain order. Agree or disagree?

In LA County very few incorporated cities actually maintain their own police force. I can only think of about 10ish off the top of my head. The rest contract for law enforcement duties to the LA County Sherrif's Dept.

Essentially, this would have a near-zero impact in LA County as discharge of a firearm in all urban areas is already prohibited.

However, the larger cities with municipal police departments might have sky-rocketing crime issues while LASD tries to staff up...its hard to say. I'm thinking of cities like Compton, Long Beach, Burbank...